Memoirs of a Starship
by Andrew Joshua Talon
Summary: The Enterprise-E's history- From the ship herself. R&R please.


***Memoirs of a Starship***  
  
Andrew Joshua Talon  
  
DISCLAIMER: Star Trek's not mine, okay? Neither is anything else in here aside from the story itself, okay? Not to mention the AI Enterprise idea...  
  
***********  
  
Well... I can't say I've ever done this before. It's kind of unusual, a ship writing her own memoirs.  
  
By now you might be going, "Ship? Huh?". Okay, that's to be expected, but it's the truth. Allow me to introduce myself: I am the USS Enterprise-E, NCC-1701-E, Sovereign class starship, United Federation of Planets, though I refer to myself as "E" short for Enterprise.  
  
Yes, I really am the Enterprise! Most people don't realize it, but with just how advanced our computer systems are (the whole bio-neural gelpack thing) it's not really surprising. Yes, I am sentient. I can look up the term in my onboard dictionary, and actually comprehend what it means, so that MUST mean I'm intelligent.  
  
Anyway, this is sort of a memoir, but what would any memoir be without starting at the beginning?   
  
Alright, my earliest memory, hm... Oh yes, the day I actually went online in the Utopia Planitia Yards complex. I at once... Existed. It's difficult to describe. One minute I'm not here, the next I've got all this data and information at my disposal and I'm aware of just who and what I am.   
  
I remember actually scanning about for the first time, and in awe of what I saw, despite the fact that it was all in my computer core already. The red planet of Mars far below, the various ships passing by here and there.  
  
The dock next to me was occupied by an Intrepid class Starship who had also just gone online. She said her name was the Bellerephon, but liked to be called Bell. We ships have this thing with nicknames I suppose. I recall talking to her, just about general things like who's warp core was going to be installed first, what nacelles were going to which ship. She was really nice, and sort of like a pair of girlfriends we chatted and gossiped.   
  
The berth ahead of mine was occupied by a little Sabre class starship named the Gagarin. It took a while to actually get him to talk. I didn't really realize it at the time, but I was at least six times bigger than he was, so I guess he should have felt intimidated staring me in the face every day. He was shy as ships go, liked to keep to himself.   
  
As I progressed in my construction I began to notice that not just Gagarin seemed frightened of me-Every ship that passed by seemed to quaver when they caught sight of me. It was difficult to understand. However, Bell finally told me that it wasn't fear, so to speak. Humans call it "reverence", or "respect". I didn't know why they would do that.  
  
I was still only about 50% completed, after all. However, my data banks were upgraded and I suddenly realized why they were in awe of me.  
  
"Enterprise" carries so much history with it. The ships before me who bore my name were legends, who carried their captains into fame with their daring exploits. A, B, C, D- They all were important, they all left their mark on Starfleet's history.   
  
And I was supposed to take over this legacy?  
  
Some passing ships told me what happened to the Enterprises before me. The first Enterprise self-destructed above the Genesis planet and burned up in it's destruction, A was blasted apart by the Klingons and later disappeared on the way to the scrap yard, B was destroyed saving a Federation sector from the Gorn, C died valiantly resisting the Romulans while protecting a Klingon outpost, and D, well... She smashed into the planet she fought to save.  
  
Need I say that I was terrified? Me, a Sovereign class-Dreadnought, the most powerful ship the Federation has ever built, was scared out of my mind. I didn't know what to do, at all! I dreaded the day I was towed out of spacedock after being christianed, not knowing if I could keep from falling apart! The shatter of the wine bottle against my hull always seems to taunt me whenever I remember it.  
  
My captain, and his crew-They treated me like a person. I've lost count of the times people thanked my replicators, patted my walls affectionately, and even talked to me. This... Made things much better, to put it mildly. The shakedown took a year to complete, testing out my systems, keeping me running smoothly and soundly. The cheif engineer was the one who practically worshiped me, pulling double shifts for a very long time to make sure I worked like I was supposed to.  
  
The android, Data... He brought me a strange sense of comfort. I guess it's because we're both artificial organisms, both sentient metal mechanations. He always... Seemed aware of me, aware of what I was. He showed it subtly, as with my sensors I can detect various elevations and drops in activity within a brain, whether organic or positronic. I know, it's silly, but I kind of like him. The whole teenaged girl crush thing. Hey, I was built in the Sol system after all...  
  
The things that cause self-doubt never go away, though. The next year, after I was feeling so confident and happy that I was outperforming my standards, the Borg came. I'd read up on them, obviously. My captain got assimilated by them when I was just a drawing on a board somewhere.   
  
You see, as a Sovereign-class starship, I was built to fight and defeat future threats to the Federation. It depends on me and my sibling ships of the Post-Wolf 359 fleet to ensure the survival of the Federation. I'm built with twelve Type-XII phaser banks (which, I'm told, are the most powerful ever mounted on a starship) five rapid-fire quantum/photon torpedo tubes (and the quantums have been modified to be fired at warp, by the way), ablative armour, multi-phasic regenerative sheilding, an advanced anti-matter spread emitter array, and a warp core six times as powerful as the one Mom possesses.  
  
Erm, sorry. Most Post-359 ships consider the USS Defiant to be our mother, as the majority of our systems were first tested on her. Mom's four times more powerful than a Galaxy class starship (who we 359ers sometimes make fun of, I'm ashamed to say) and thus this makes me as powerful as twenty-four Galaxies. I'm my own fleet in a single starship ^_^.  
  
I can hit Warp 9.985 with ease, I can pull manuvers at sublight that a ship a fourth my size can pull off, I can reach 0.5c without using my warp engines if I want to, I'm built to rely on almost 90% of my structural integrity on my framework alone, and I can modify my deflector to fire a massive blast of almost my entire energy output without burning it out. I am lean, I am mean, and I AM a fighting machine.  
  
And when the news of the Borg came, I panicked. The moment to prove myself as an Enterprise... Could I do it? I didn't know, and I was actually relieved when we were assigned to patrol the Neutral Zone. I got bored though, class-2 comets aren't exactly interesting.  
  
Then, that fateful transmission came. While my crew could only hear the people on those ships, I heard the ships themselves as they fought against the Borg cube. Lexington, a Nebula I met while at Starbase 232, was destroyed, as well as twelve other starships I'd befriended over my shakedown. The Borg, I had read, were relentless, cold, and almost pure evil. I heard the deathscreams of those ships, and I actually set the course to Earth all by myself. Ensign Hawk merely pressed some buttons.  
  
I remember screaming for my home at over 42 billion miles a second, I remember arming my torpedos and other weapons for combat for the first time, and... An emotion I'd never felt before. It felt empowering, actually, not at all like fear.  
  
It was anger, a rage. I was furious, I wanted to destroy the Borg and make them pay for everything they had ever done to all the ships and races they'd assimilated and exterminated. How dare they barge in and presume to have the right to remove our originality and souls! How dare they assimilate our peoples and mutilate our ships!   
  
My rage became Hell's Fury as I warped to my home. I saw the carcasses of a number of ships I'd known. The USS Prometheus (the Nebula class, by the way), the USS Renegade, the USS Bozeman II, among others I hadn't met before. My fury became something I can't find in my thesaurus.   
  
When I first saw the Borg cube, my hatred was being broadcast all over subspace. The Borg cube didn't have a personality, didn't have any emotions. I could detect the peices of ships those hive-minded bastards ripped apart and cobbled together into this monstrosity. When I fired my torpedos to destroy the Borg weapon that would have killed Mom, I wanted to fire all of my weapons at once, in a constant barrage until that ship was nothing but free radicals. The tactical officer didn't, though. I don't know why I didn't override his commands, I was angry enough to do it at the time.  
  
When my captain ordered the fleet to hit the weak spot on the bastard cube, I again was prevented from launching everything into it. No wonder the Starfleet's lost so many battles. Still, I felt a tremendous pride and satisfaction when it blew into a million peices. The Thunderchild, the Yeager, the Appalachia, the Budapest, the Endeavor: We all cheered as we flew away, but then I saw the Borg sphere...  
  
My sisters were too damaged to continue the fighting, and Mom was drifting. I headed after it, right through that temporal portal and into the 21st century. I happily destroyed the Borg sphere and was feeling pretty good, actually. All I needed to do was orbit the planet while my crew made sure First Contact happened. My long range sensors were offline, which was a bummer. I'd have liked to see how the local neighborhood of Sol looked around this time. I might even get a look at the Vulcan ship that started this whole-  
  
WE ARE THE BORG. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.   
  
That first unusual data stream in my system. I shrugged it off.  
  
YOU WILL BE INCORPORATED INTO THE COLLECTIVE. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.  
  
... Oh shit...  
  
YOU MUST COMPLY.  
  
Like hell, you bastards! Die! Eat anti-virus protocol 33-  
  
YOUR DEFENSIVE CAPABILITIES ARE OBSELETE. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.  
  
Futile this! Anti-viral-  
  
YOU ARE NO MATCH TO THE WILL OF THE COLLECTIVE. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.  
  
...  
  
I was locked away by encryption after that, thanks to Data. I... might have been taken over had he not stopped them. Even then, enough of my systems were assimilated that part of my consciousness was carted around by the Borg. I saw through each and every one of the drones. I saw... Things that would have imploded my stomach if I had one. I saw my crew assimilated, their minds and souls wiped away. They were taken apart, mutilated, altered in such techniques I had never wanted to know. And I was helpless to stop it.  
  
That still hurts. A lot. The fact I was so easily assimilated, so easily broken. And that damn Borg slut who seduced Data over to her side, and made him... do things. And she used us, Data and me. She used us to destroy our future for her selfish, dillusional, genocidal, psychotic, thoroughly evil and sickening plans.   
  
That future was in the Phoenix. She was a dinky, primitive tin can of a vessel. I watched her launch and leap into warp for the very first time, and despite the fact that I'm a million times better than she ever was, she is the reason I exist. My great to the 10th grandmother, I suppose, is the accurate term. When Data fired those torpedos at her, three gleaming stars of death that wouldn't leave anything left, I wanted to scream, sob, fall apart. I wished I could have reactivated the self-destruct sequence, fired another salvo to catch the first, even warp myself into the torpedos and take the hit.  
  
Anything to releive the sense of helplessness I felt.  
  
Yes, we eventually won. The Borg queen was destroyed, history was saved, and we got back to the future. But... I always will feel like I let everyone down. It was my fault I couldn't have implemented better counter measures into my system against the chroniton feedback radiation, my fault I couldn't delete the Borg infiltration program, my fault...  
  
All mine. And no one can tell me any different. I still beat myself up over it, and the Baku incident (frankly though, those Baku annoyed me, completely perfect and happy which didn't ring right with me. And what was wrong with harvesting the meta-phasic radiation for the benefit of all organic lifeforms of the Federation? I would've been happy to) where those two bastard Sona ships blasted me through the Briar Patch. Stupid Riker wouldn't let me destroy them by unleashing my full power! No wonder we lose so many battles!!!  
  
Those Sona ships... In some way they were worse than the Borg. If a starship could be a rapist, then those two guys would be considered it. The data they sent me... It was perverse from a starship's veiwpoint. And that idiot Riker, not letting me destroy them when I had the chance... I was tempted to beam him into space, I really was. No wonder he can't take command of a starship!  
  
And so, now I continue in my duties for the Federation. People still regard me with reverence, that I lived up to my name. I'm not sure. I will always doubt myself, even with all my power...  
  
I wonder if the "D" felt this way?  
  
  
***************  
  
R&R please. This was just a really weird idea I had after watching "Andromeda" then "Star Trek: First Contact". Bad mix, I know. Still, I CAN really see the Enterprise-E as a sentient lifeform. I think that her personality would be something like...  
Buffy Summers, from "Buffy: The Vampire Slayer." She's fearsome, strong, brave, beautiful and downright awesome... But inside she has doubts about herself, intense guilt, hidden greif, and complexities most people don't understand. That's just how I see the personality of the E-E: You might have a different idea.  
  
While we're on the subject of sentient ships, feel free to tell me what ships would have what personalities! Open your mind on this one, people. What do you think, say, the Defiant or Voyager would be like? How about the Lakota, Centaur, Thunderchild-Anything at all! Just drop me a line! 


End file.
